Indian Country Today Media Network.com - Sarah Palinhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/tags/sarah-palin
enTrump’s Cabinet Full of Crazy: D.C. Musical Chairs, Part IIhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/11/16/trumps-cabinet-full-crazy-dc-musical-chairs-part-ii-166464
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Corporate headhunters are looking for what they call KSAs—knowledge, skills and abilities—particular to the job being filled. In Part I of this series, we saw that the Trump Transition team has a list of persons that must be employed in the Trump administration without regard to KSAs. This is not peculiar to Trump, but it is aggravated by his lack of experience in government when he insists on filling key positions with persons close to him—family, friends and political supporters.</p>
<p>RELATED: <a href="https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/11/15/guide-trumps-dc-game-musical-chairs-part-i-166457" target="_self">A Guide to Washington’s Game of Musical Chairs, Part I</a></p>
<p>The list of people lined up for Cabinet level positions has become just as important as the positions, if not more so. Further complicating Trump’s task is that the large numbers of slots needing to be filled between now and January mean he will have to delegate some of that authority. No POTUS is likely to delegate Cabinet level choices, and so the lists he makes are critical to the functioning of the government.</p>
<p>In Part I, we saw that former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie remains on the list of must hires even after his replacement by Vice President-Elect Mike Pence at the head of the transition.</p>
<p>Another sure thing, assuming he is willing to take the pay cut to work for government, is Trump campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin, an investment banker and Goldman, Sachs alum.</p>
<p>The race for White House Chief of Staff, a post of breathtaking power because that person can normally control access to the POTUS, was between another Goldman, Sachs alum, Trump campaign CEO Stephen Bannon and Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus. Bannon’s last stop before the Trump train was Breitbart News, so the Chief of Staff appointment was handicapped as a contest between the alt-right forces that saw Trump get endorsed by the KKK and other white supremacists and Priebus, representing the GOP establishment and particularly Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, since Priebus and Ryan share home turf in Wisconsin.</p>
<p>The tenor of the Bannon-Priebus decision was caught nicely in a story on Breitbart November 13: “Michael Savage Warns Donald Trump: ‘Rinse’ Reince; He’s ‘Everything the Voters Rejected.’” Savage is a fixture in the alt-right media as a radio personality and most recently the author of <em>Scorched Earth: Restoring the Country After Obama</em>. In the run up to the election, Savage was accusing President Obama of intending to cancel it.</p>
<p>Later that same day, Trump announced his decision: Priebus. Trump’s choice of an establishment gatekeeper might be the first major clue of what kind of POTUS we have. However, that clue is attenuated by Trump’s simultaneous elevation of Bannon to “chief strategist and chief counselor.” Other clues are in the people believed to be high enough on his must-hire list to be considered for Cabinet level posts, presented here in alphabetical order.</p>
<p>—Dr. Ben Carson, coming off a first career as a talented neurosurgeon, was ridiculed by Trump over stories of his rowdy and mean childhood. After Carson’s candidacy faltered, he quickly made peace with Trump, attracted by the fact that they both have no education or experience in government.</p>
<p>Carson was mentioned for Secretary of Education or Secretary of Health and Human Services, but through spokesman Armstrong Williams he declined a cabinet role because, “Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he’s never run a federal agency.” The irony that Carson had put himself forward to run the whole shebang went unstated. Carson remains an obvious choice for Surgeon General if he wants the position.</p>
<p>—Former Gen. Mike Flynn has been described by Politico as “America’s angriest general.” He’s angry at being forced out as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency over his aggressive management style. He’s angry that one of the few terrorist fighters he considers his peer, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was forced out as commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan after giving an interview to <em>Rolling Stone</em> that ripped U.S. civilian leadership in nonprofessional terms.</p>
<p>Despising the Obama administration, Flynn signed on with the Trump campaign and endorsed some of Trump’s outrageous statements about military affairs. Because of his loyalty, Flynn is being mentioned for Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Director of National Intelligence (CIA), or National Security Advisor.</p>
<p></div></div></div>Wed, 16 Nov 2016 15:00:00 +0000kpolisse166464 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/11/16/trumps-cabinet-full-crazy-dc-musical-chairs-part-ii-166464#commentsVP Debate: Pence Wins on Style; Kaine on Substancehttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/10/05/vp-debate-pence-wins-style-kaine-substance-165994
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>We are unlikely to see another William Henry Harrison, the old Indian fighter who was elected on the strength of his defeat of Tecumseh’s Rebellion and served for 30 days, 12 hours, and 30 minutes before passing the office to his VP, John Tyler.</p>
<p>We hope never to see another John F. Kennedy, struck down by an assassin with his agenda mostly unfinished, an agenda that fared well with his VP, the legislative bone crusher Lyndon B. Johnson.</p>
<p>However, the reality is that the winner of the Trump-Clinton smackdown will be either the oldest (Trump) or the second oldest (Clinton) POTUS in history. Trump and Clinton are also the most unpopular pair ever to face off for the office, and each has enemies that are completely irrational.</p>
<p>Trump has taken entertainment value to a whole new level in politics this year, so the VP debate was bound to suffer by comparison. Historically, the highest rated VP debate was between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden; the lowest pitted Al Gore against Jack Kemp. Even though none of those four candidates became POTUS, they all cut a swath through the history of their times.</p>
<p>Playing Tonto to Trump’s and Clinton’s Long Ranger are Indiana Governor Mike Pence for Trump and Virginia Senator Tim Kaine for Clinton. Both have solid resumes but neither is likely to overshadow the top of the ticket.</p>
<p>Pence was selected to be a moderating influence on Trump, to make mainstream Republicans comfortable. He earned a B.A. in history from Hanover College and a law degree from Indiana University at Indianapolis. Pence is indeed moderate in style, but his substance is vintage Tea Party.</p>
<p>Pence was a climate change denier until September 27, 2016, when he appeared to change his tune without explanation. He favors a flat tax and favors having a debate about a return to the gold standard. He opposed President Obama’s economic stimulus package even after it was watered down and he opposed the bail-out of the U.S. auto industry.</p>
<p>Pence carried 90 bills during his 12 years in Congress without passing one.</p>
<p>As Governor of Indiana, Pence got national notice for signing a bill to encourage discrimination against gay people under the guise of religious freedom, and for quickly backing down as businesses began to cancel projects in Indiana (proving himself more sensible than Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina). Pence has also been on the losing end of court battles over his efforts to prevent Syrian refugees from settling in Indiana.</p>
<p>Kaine earned a B.A. in economics, <em>summa cum laude</em>, from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Harvard. He has served on the Richmond, Virginia city council and as mayor. He served as Lt. Governor of Virginia from 2001 to 2005, when he became Governor. He was Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011 and was elected to the Senate in 2012.</p>
<p>Kaine’s early legal career was dedicated to litigating open housing issues. His election as mayor was a bit of a shock, since the mayor is selected by the majority-black city council and there had not been a white mayor in over a decade.</p>
<p>Kaine has had a couple of “scandals.” He spent $6,000 in public funds to charter busses for the anti-gun violence Million Mom March. After an outcry, he reimbursed the city from private donations. He was attacked in his run for governor for 10 years of free work as court appointed lawyer for a death row inmate.</p>
<p>Kaine and Pence—unlike Trump (Presbyterian) and Clinton (Methodist)—are both overtly guided by their religious faith. Both were raised Roman Catholics, but Pence converted to the sort of evangelical Protestantism that aspires to rule by Christian mullahs. Pence brings his religion into policy full force; Kaine takes the John Kennedy view that he is not running for Pope.</p>
<p>Elected to the Senate after the legislative lockdown the Republicans imposed to keep President Obama from doing anything, Kaine would not have much chance to pass legislation. His work has focused on working with Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio to found the Career and Technical Education Caucus. In 2014, he and Portman sponsored legislation to appropriate $500 million to high schools for CTE programs.</p>
<p>Kaine spent time as a missionary in Honduras, where he became fluent in Spanish. He’s the rare non-native speaker in the same league as Jeb Bush, who speaks clear and excellent Spanish with a Mexican colloquial flavor.</p>
<p>The moderator was Elaine Quijano of CBS. Trump promised to live tweet the event, but the talking heads were unanimously of the opinion he would only do it with a “minder.” The GOP website put up an evaluation that Pence won decisively—an hour before the debate started. It was taken down before Quijano kicked off the festivities.</p>
<p></div></div></div>Wed, 05 Oct 2016 16:10:55 +0000kpolisse165994 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/10/05/vp-debate-pence-wins-style-kaine-substance-165994#commentsHow Did I Miss That? Mr. Guthrie Hated Mr. Trump; Palin, Uh, "Speaks"http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/01/22/how-did-i-miss-mr-guthrie-hated-mr-trump-palin-uh-speaks-163157
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">Maybe only an academic could love this, but a scholar rooting in a historical archive uncovered a very topical piece of legitimate current events commentary.</span></p></div></div></div>Fri, 22 Jan 2016 17:00:01 +0000mazecyrus163157 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/01/22/how-did-i-miss-mr-guthrie-hated-mr-trump-palin-uh-speaks-163157#commentsUnpacking the Clown Car of Early GOP Presidential Hopefulshttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/01/31/unpacking-clown-car-early-gop-presidential-hopefuls
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">I have too much self-preservation instinct to crash the Iowa Freedom Summit convened by Citizens United (the organization that lends its name to the SCOTUS decision upholding the right of corporate people to spend unlimited political money) and funded by the Koch Brothers. So I weaseled out by sending my Republican cousin Ray Sixkiller.</span></p>
<p>When I heard Sarah Palin would speak, I looked forward to razzing my cousin about it. He beat that back by reading me some reactions to Palin’s speech:</p>
<p><em>Calling Gov. Palin’s speech bizarre and disjointed would be charitable.</em></p>
<p><em>Long and incoherent.</em></p>
<p><em style="line-height:1.6em;">Terrible. Didn’t make any sense.</em></p>
<p><em>Palin was a sad story Saturday. With every speech she gives, she gets worse and worse. If one were playing a political cliché drinking game, no one would have been sober after the first 15 minutes of an interminable ramble. It was really painful.</em></p>
<p>“What do you care about the lamestream media, Ray?”</p>
<p>“Those were all <em>Republican</em> quotes, from the <em>Washington Examiner</em>. We’re getting our act together this time!”</p>
<p>Cousin Ray was really down for the last two election cycles because they had the same losing dynamic. In 2008, the Republican primary clown car disgorged every not-McCain until McCain was driven so far to the right he could never get out of the ditch for the general election.</p>
<p>The 2012 cycle repeated the same for the not-Romneys. The former Massachusetts Governor was particularly subjected to humiliation because every other candidate led in polls at one time or another and some of them were objectively not fit to carry Romney’s briefcase.</p>
<p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">In 2008, the clown car was packed with bozos like Tom “stop the Mexicans” Tancredo, Alan “carpetbagger” Keyes, and Fred Thompson, whose claims to fame are playing the FBI honcho who sent Val Kilmer to find his Lakota roots in </span><em style="line-height:1.6em;">Thunderheart</em><span style="line-height:1.6em;"> and setting the world straight on the myths about reverse mortgages.</span></p>
<p>But there were also GOP candidates in 2008 that had some cred before they imploded, like former governors Mitt Romney, Tommy Thompson, Jim Gilmore, and Mike Huckabee. And there was future Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, who would destroy the Kansas economy with Reaganomics. Even Rudy Giuliani was a serious candidate until he wasn’t.</p>
<p>None of the obvious bozos threatened in polls to trounce McCain in 2008. Romney was not so lucky in 2012.</p>
<p>Cousin Ray is a Dwight Eisenhower Republican, and he likes to remind me that Richard Nixon, while he was a disaster for the country, was damn good for Indians. But I think the last GOP president that Ray liked was Gerald Ford. This year, he’s optimistic.</p>
<p>“Look at the quality of the candidates who skipped the Kochfest,” Ray crowed. “Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio. There’s five serious guys who didn’t step into the herding chute for the clown car.” He referred to the history of radical right Iowans braving blizzards to hand caucus victories to candidates unpalatable to ordinary conservatives, let alone the great middle that swings U.S. elections.</p>
<p>Rick Santorum? Seriously?</p>
<p>Ray is of the opinion that a robust Republican debate in the primaries can avoid a Hillary Clinton coronation. I think he may be right, but I’m skeptical that the Republicans can keep the debate on the rails. How can Republicans be sanguine about the primaries when the runaway crowd pleaser in Iowa was Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who can be counted on to blow up anything he can’t dominate?</p>
<p>One guy big enough to straddle the mainstream and the Tea Party is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. From audience reaction, Cousin Ray reported, “the GOP just might be willing to buy a bridge from that guy, even if it’s missing an exit lane.”</p>
<p>“There were lots of serious people in Iowa,” Ray pointed out. He brought up Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who attacked unions in a state that was so pro-labor when I lived there that most people literally would not cross a picket line to drink free beer when the brewery workers were on strike.</p>
<p>Dr. Ben Carson was a surprise favorite. His major claim to fame is being rude to President Obama in Obama’s presence, but the Freedom Summit crowd loved people with the guts to call out “the Muslim” in the White House. Carson’s appeal in Iowa was based on his claim to be “not a politician” as he applies for the highest political job in the land.</p>
<p>Cousin Ray’s response to my remark that people like that have about as much respect for political science as they have for climate science was to agree---with a caveat. “If Carson can’t handle the science of governing then he can’t handle the science of running. He’s going nowhere.”</p>
<p>Ray might be right, but Carson reminds me of the pizza guy who was proud of not knowing anything about Uzbekistan but led the polls for a time in 2012. Which reminds me of a guy who wants to drive the clown car so badly he’s willing to buy it, The Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Trump was caught on video rejecting the question, “What’s your favorite county in Iowa?” He could easily have escaped having his ignorance of Iowa outed by telling the truth that naming any county would offend people in all the other counties. Instead, he managed to display both his arrogance and his disdain for the process in one answer: “This isn’t a history course.”</p>
<p>I poked Cousin Ray with the remark that if George W. Bush had passed a history course, the United States would not have invaded Iraq the second time. He did not rise to the bait.</p>
<p>“Did you hear about Carly Fiorina? She pointed out that she has as many frequent flyer miles as Hillary Clinton with more accomplishments. The audience loved it,” Ray said.</p>
<p>“Accomplishments?,” I asked. “Would that be running Hewlett-Packard so far into the ground that the board paid her $40 million to go away, or the ‘demon sheep’ ad she ran against Barbara Boxer?”</p>
<p>“Enjoy it while you can,” Cousin Ray grumbled. “This ain’t 2012. Even Rick Perry cleaned up his act. He sounds like a different person.”</p>
<p>I had to admit that’s true. Perry now wears glasses and writes crib notes on his shirt cuffs. No more “Oops.”</p>
<p>That’s not the only thing Cousin Ray’s correct about. (I won’t say “right” because he’s sensitive about that.) Americans fought a revolution to end coronations in North America and royalty is still a powerful negative meme. Ray is correct that even if the Republican field were just limited to the five major candidates who had the good sense to skip the Iowa Freedom Summit, it could no longer be dismissed as “the clown car.”</p>
<p>Sec. Clinton’s best bet is if she gets at least one serious Democratic primary opponent who can do more than play Washington General to her Harlem Globetrotter. Funny things happen on the way to U.S. coronations.</p>
<p><em>Steve Russell, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is a Texas trial court judge by assignment and associate professor emeritus of criminal justice at Indiana University-Bloomington. He lives in Georgetown, Texas.</em></p>
</div></div></div></div></fieldset>
<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">GOP Clown Car Crashes the Coronation?</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/politics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Politics</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Steve Russell</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/steve-russell" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steve Russell</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/koch-brothers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Koch Brothers</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/rick-santorum" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Rick Santorum</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/sarah-palin" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sarah Palin</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/ben-carson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ben Carson</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/scott-walker" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Scott Walker</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/canada" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Barack Obama</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/george-w-bush-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">George W. Bush</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/steve-russell" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steve Russell</a></div></div></div>Sat, 31 Jan 2015 13:00:52 +0000mazecyrus158949 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/01/31/unpacking-clown-car-early-gop-presidential-hopefuls#commentsPalin's Redskins Rant: Using a Political Football to Silence a Peoplehttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/08/28/palins-redskins-rant-using-political-football-silence-people-156620
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Sarah Palin took to Facebook on Friday to deliver <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin/posts/10152669302158588" target="_blank">her thoughts on the Washington Redskins</a>, spurred to action by Mike Ditka and Rush Limbaugh.</p></div></div></div>Thu, 28 Aug 2014 15:02:00 +0000jrobertson156620 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/08/28/palins-redskins-rant-using-political-football-silence-people-156620#commentsAlarming Number of Canadian Indigenous Women Missing, Murderedhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/07/22/alarming-number-canadian-indigenous-women-missing-murdered
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>In Canada a disproportionate number of indigenous women are missing and found murdered with evidence of police collusion and the roots of the problem reside in colonial administrative policies which the federal government maintains. Genocidal policies designed to destroy the indigenous people have been acknowledged and apologies have been given but there is no change in current policies which continue to violate human rights of the indigenous people.</p>
<p>There is genocide happening in the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatamala and El Salvador and in the country of Mexico too. Violent crime in their communities, gang related or otherwise, has created a situation where thousands of refugees, many of them children, have crossed the US border seeking protection and in fear of losing their lives.</p>
<p>It is important to distinguish between immigrants and refugees. An immigrant is anyone that migrates from their country or region of origin to a different country or region. A refugee is anyone that migrates from their country or region of origin for fear of persecution and a return to their country or region of origin will cause further persecution. Refugees travel because of fear. The United Nations’ definition states "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country…"</p>
<p>It is clear to most of us that these children seeking refuge are in great fear of being injured or killed and this is what qualifies them as refugees. Every one of the refugee children has a right to a fair hearing to determine their status and to seek asylum. They have the same human rights as everyone else. They have a legal status and are not illegal immigrants or “illegals” sneaking across a border meant to keep them out.</p>
<p>In addition, these refugees are indigenous people. Pre- European colonization of North and South America and Canada indigenous people inhabited these continents.</p>
<p>Sarah Palin, in her call for the president’s impeachment, stated “Without borders, there is no nation.” This rhetoric strikes fear in the hearts of all people of color because this sounds like Nationalism and/or Patriotism and historically this has meant mass destruction of our way of life. It was nearly 400 years ago when a group of immigrants seeking refuge from religious persecution came to this country occupied by indigenous people and they were welcomed and taught to fish, hunt, gather and farm. Without borders we welcomed these refugees in and the rest is history.</p>
<p>I would like to formally express my solidarity with the indigenous refugees to our South and the victims of human rights violations of the indigenous neighbors to our North. Within the United States there has been talk of a comprehensive “Indian Border Act” to address issues regarding both the United States/Canadian border and the United States/Mexican border. Immigration reform needs to include the voices of indigenous people. I am calling on the government to respect the sovereignty of the Native American nations and allow our indigenous neighbors to the north and south refuge in the United States.</p>
<p><span><em>Donna Ennis is employed in the Behavioral Health Program and is a Tribal Elder at Fond du Lac Reservation. She is on the Board of Directors for the Minnesota Board of Social Work. She is also on the Approved Continuing Education Committee for the Association of Social Work Boards.</em></span></p>
</div></div></div></div></fieldset>
<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Canadian Women Missing, Murdered</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/crime" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Crime</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Donna Ennis</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/donna-ennis" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Donna Ennis</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/indian-border-act" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Indian Border Act</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/sarah-palin" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sarah Palin</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/murder" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Murder</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/canadian-aboriginal-people" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canada</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/donna-ennis" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Donna Ennis</a></div></div></div>Tue, 22 Jul 2014 12:00:39 +0000mazecyrus155983 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/07/22/alarming-number-canadian-indigenous-women-missing-murdered#commentsRed, White, Black and Blue: Assata Shakur, Leonard Peltier and Racehttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/05/23/red-white-black-and-blue-assata-shakur-leonard-peltier-and-race
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>In May 2011, the spectacle of political theater took a quickly forgotten detour into the realm of the absurd when minor protests erupted over the participation of Chicago rapper Common in a White House poetry slam. Karl Rove decried the recording artist and film star as a "thug" and “misogynist," while Sarah Palin took to Facebook with a sardonic, "Just lovely." The labor union representing New Jersey state troopers voiced robust opposition, and Obama press secretary Jay Carney found himself awkwardly debating the nuances of hip hop with the media corps. The impetus of this firestorm? A track on the singer's 2000 album <em>Like Water for Chocolate</em> entitled "A Song for Assata," on which Cee Lo Green proclaims of the tune's heroine, "Your power, your pride is beautiful."</p>
<p>The subject of this ode is, of course, Assata Shakur, an African-American activist and former member of both the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. To say Shakur is polarizing would be an understatement to the extent of effective distortion. Otherwise known by her married name of JoAnne Chesimard, the Queens native rose to prominence during the early 1970s when she was accused of perpetrating a string of violent felonies in and around the New York metropolitan area. By 1972, she appeared on the cover of the <em>Daily News</em> as speculation crescendoed regarding her possible involvement in an $89,000 bank robbery.</p>
<p>Shakur reentered the public discourse on May 2 when the FBI announced that the aging fugitive had become the first woman to warrant inclusion on the agency's list of Most Wanted Terrorists. Inevitably, disagreement with the news was loud and passionate. Rank-and-file conservatives applauded the policy decision, but others quite rightly expressed bafflement.</p>
<p>The press conference in which Shakur's bounty was doubled to $2 million registered as random and hyperbolic. Although she has by all accounts lived without incident in Cuba since 1984, New Jersey State Police Col. Rick Fuentes castigated her for "flaunting her freedom" and lamented that she "has been given a pulpit to preach and profess, stirring supporters and groups to mobilize against the United States by any means necessary." The FBI claimed she represents a "supreme terror" despite the absence of any new intelligence to suggest as much. Like the continuing incarceration of Leonard Peltier, the sudden full-press vilification of Shakur spotlights the extent to which racism pervades not only mainstream America at large, but also the progressive establishment and the aggregate radical left.</p>
<p>The revisionist fantasy which casts Shakur as a veritable horsewoman of the apocalypse trades on the basest of culturally ingrained biases. Often portrayed as a "cop killer" bogeyman, she affords — as one of the few female firebrands of the civil rights movement — governmental apparatuses an opportunity to simultaneously exploit the West's Lady Macbeth complex and deflect attention from its own shameful historical transgressions. Ever since Eve sampled the forbidden apple, society has loved a female antagonist, an impulse evident in the FBI's tellingly gendered description of Shakur as "a revolutionary mother hen." That she's a woman of color in this instance offers the unique benefit of camouflaging the U.S’s own significant sins in the race wars.</p>
<p>The realities of Shakur's persecution are disturbing. Between 1973 and 1977, she was indicted for a total of ten crimes in several different tri-state jurisdictions. Six of the ensuing seven trials culminated in acquittal or dismissal of the charges. Her luck ran out, however, when she was convicted of first-degree murder for her role in the New Jersey Turnpike shootout that ended in the death of law enforcement official Werner Foerster. The verdict was issued despite an admission under cross-examination by eyewitness State Trooper James Harper that he had lied repeatedly during his previous Grand Jury testimony and the contention of multiple medical professionals that injuries Shakur sustained during the gunfight could only have occurred with her arms raised in surrender. Such details leave little doubt that the activist was not exaggerating when she described the proceedings as "a lynching."</p>
<p>In the mythologies that have developed since Shakur's 1979 escape from prison, commentators of every ideological stripe have reductively conflated her trajectory with those of ostensibly similar collectives like the Weather Underground. But while the BLA occasionally crossed paths with other organizations — most notably in the notorious 1981 Brink's truck armed robbery — their memberships could hardly have been more different. Helmed largely by affluent Caucasian dilettantes engaged in delayed adolescent rebellion, the WU proved a philosophically inconsistent cohort of alternately embarrassing and tragic individuals. After lauding Charles Manson’s savage rampage, Bernardine Dohrn (née Ohrnstein; apparently, the ascendancy of Anglicized names trumps the appeal of liberal "diversity") cashed in with lucrative jobs at the Chicago law firm Sidley Austin and Northwestern University. Her husband, Bill Ayers, penned a memoir primarily devoted to parsing his past sexual conquests. Devolving into the domestic terrorist version of <em>Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?</em>, the couple seem to have occupied themselves over the past thirty years mostly with reveling in obscure triumphs and embracing the kind of bourgeoisie lifestyle against which they once railed. Poor little rich girl Kathy Boudin, meanwhile, was content to pantomime solidarity with the disadvantaged until she faced a murder charge of her own, at which point she enlisted her father to assemble an expensive legal team that pleaded with her co-defendants to lie about the degree of her involvement in the aforementioned deadly Brink's holdup. Like Dohrn, Boudin now enjoys the professional and financial security of teaching positions at Columbia and NYU.</p>
<p>By contrast, Shakur spent much of her childhood in the cauldron of the Jim Crow South. If her biography recalls that of any fellow freedom fighter, it is Peltier. Both grappled from an early age with the net of systematic oppression, the former in 1950s North Carolina and the latter on Turtle Mountain and Pine Ridge. Both endured dubious criminal trials as prologue to their widely contested convictions. And both find themselves either literally or symbolically imprisoned decades after suspicions of police and FBI misconduct initially emerged while white counterparts like Susan Rosenberg and Linda Evans received commutations of sentence by President Clinton. One needs only to refer to such disparities to realize that minorities remain unequal in the practical application of the law. When it comes to questions of race, even the revolution, it seems, will not be color blind.</p>
<p><span><span><em>Educated at Darmouth College and Columbia University, Cole DeLaune is a native of Oklahoma and Tennessee. He currently resides in Atlanta, and has contributed editorial content to </em>Vogue<em> and </em>Elle<em>, among other publications. He is a member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma.</em><em> </em>Skin-walking</span><em><span>, his first book of poetry, will be published in October.</span></em></span></p>
</div></div></div></div></fieldset>
<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Red, White, Black and Blue</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/communication" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Communication</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/crime" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Crime</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/culture" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Culture</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/discrimination" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Discrimination</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/government" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Government</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/history" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">History</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/human-rights" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Human rights</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/identity" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Identity</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/legal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Legal</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/335" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Opinion</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/politics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Politics</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/racism" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Racism</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/world-events-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">World Events</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Cole R. DeLaune</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-primary-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Primary category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/335" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Opinion</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/assata-shakur" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Assata Shakur</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/leonard-peltier" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Leonard Peltier</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/sarah-palin" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sarah Palin</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/common" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Common</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/race-relations" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Race Relations</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/cole-r-delaune" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cole R. DeLaune</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/karl-rove" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Karl Rove</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/cee-lo-green" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cee Lo Green</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/song-assata" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">A Song for Assata</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/american-indian-movement" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">American Indian Movement</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/charles-manson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Charles Manson</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/black-panthers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Black Panthers</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/cole-r.-delaune" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cole R. DeLaune</a></div></div></div>Thu, 23 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000mlarson149451 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/05/23/red-white-black-and-blue-assata-shakur-leonard-peltier-and-race#commentsRepublican VP Candidate Paul Ryan’s American Indian Outlookhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/08/16/republican-vp-candidate-paul-ryans-american-indian-outlook-129580
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>WASHINGTON – There are some sentimental reasons for American Indians to feel good about U.S. Rep.</p></div></div></div>Thu, 16 Aug 2012 20:00:46 +0000kpolisse129580 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/08/16/republican-vp-candidate-paul-ryans-american-indian-outlook-129580#commentsBerenstain Bears Books Replace Jim Henson Toys in Chick-fil-A Kids’ Mealshttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/07/30/berenstain-bears-books-replace-jim-henson-toys-chick-fil-kids-meals-126567
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-126579" src="http://d1jrw5jterzxwu.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Berenstain-Bears-Golden-Rule1-270x270.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="270" />Chick-fil-A has announced its replacement toy</p></div></div></div>Tue, 31 Jul 2012 03:49:32 +0000leeanne126567 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/07/30/berenstain-bears-books-replace-jim-henson-toys-chick-fil-kids-meals-126567#commentsLearning Peacefulness From the Zapotecashttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/05/04/learning-peacefulness-zapotecas
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I have for some time been analyzing the “ecology of fear” and the climate of hatred it generates to feed the growing menace of presumably random acts of violence in Arizona such as last year’s shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. When we consider the pattern it seems less random and more like a systematic campaign of violence against immigrants, many of them our Native brothers and sisters from displaced communities in Mexico and Guatemala. Right-wing militias are not just perpetrating the violence; it is also part and parcel of a growing use of deadly force by the border patrol and other law enforcement officers.</p>
<p>We can consider the pattern as systematic violence given this sample of a broader set of incidents establishing the context of an ecology of fear:</p>
<p>• 2009: The May <a title="Brisenia Flores" href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/25/nation/la-na-minutemen-murder-20110126" target="_blank">murder of 9 year-old Brisenia Flores by Minutemen Militia members</a> during a home invasion in a suburb of Phoenix;</p>
<p>• 2010: The <a title="Anastacio Hernandez-Rojas" href="http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/04/26/arturo-carmona-who-killed-anastasio-hernandez-rojas/" target="_blank">May murder of Anastacio Hernandez-Rojas</a>, a father of two U.S. born citizen children, who was killed by a dozen border patrol agents who surrounded him as officers repeatedly used a Taser while he was already on the ground asking for help; the officers beat him to death while applying electrical currents to his body; Then on June 7, border patrol agent Jesús Mesa Jr. shot and killed 15 year-old Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereca while the victim stood in Ciudad Juárez on Mexican soil; There have been at least 20 other such cases of Border Patrol violence causing the death of immigrants since 2007;</p>
<p>• 2012: on April 12, armed militia members killed two people trying to cross into Arizona from Mexico in an apparent attack. According to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, the victims were killed when “subjects in camouflage clothing armed with rifles” ambushed a pickup truck carrying up to 30 undocumented immigrants near the Arizona town of Eloy</p>
<p>These recurring deadly attacks on immigrants by the border patrol and armed militia groups come as Arizona lawmakers brazenly consider a measure to create a state-backed armed militia to work with Border Patrol agents along the U.S.-Mexico border to capture undocumented immigrants. This will only solidify this violent ecology of fear and state-sponsored violence. This growing state-sponsored violence led Amnesty International to issue an important report, "<a title="In Hostile Terrain: Human Rights Violations in Immigration Enforcement in the U.S. Southwest" href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/usa-in-hostile-terrain-human-rights-violations-in-immigration-enforcement-in-the-us-southwest" target="_blank">In Hostile Terrain: Human Rights Violations in Immigration Enforcement in the U.S. Southwest</a>," <a title="ICTMN In Hostile Terrain: Human Rights Violations in Immigration Enforcement in the U.S. Southwest" href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/03/28/amnesty-international-report-cites-human-rights-violations-along-us-mexico-border-105167" target="_blank">as was reported on Indian Country Today Media Network this past March</a>.</p>
<p>At the outset, we need to recognize all the killings that were caused or promoted by right-wing partisan hatred and the direct calls made by right-wing extremists for acts of political violence, oftentimes attached to a sense of entitlement that right-wing extremists express through an emotional appeal to the right to defend their land, families, and territory.</p>
<p>We must therefore be receptive to the idea that the ideologically hostile climate produced by exaggerated right-wing grievances about ethnic, racial, class, and other sources of resentment is a serious problem in our public culture, and thus limits democracy. Despite the underlying validity of this argument, I do not agree that this is the most positive and productive approach to take in seeking to address the problem of a lack of a civil, equitable, and democratic political culture in this nation. What is needed instead is a movement toward a more transformative dialogue about peace and democracy, grounded in the lived experiences of our families and communities. We are all partly made into the type of human we embody as a result of the child-rearing practices we experience.</p>
<p>Pundits and analysts have engaged in mostly thoughtful discussions of the social, cultural, and political contexts of the recent mass murder in Arizona. According to Michael Nagler, there is growing recognition of “an apparently forbidden truth: that we bring violence on ourselves when we promote it, glorify it, or legitimize it — as in this case by the extreme rhetoric associated with Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, among others.” Still, for every such in-depth analysis of the issue, there are others content to remain on the surface.</p>
<p>Was the Tucson massacre a form of political violence? Some have argued that it was, by virtue of the fact that the principal target was an elected official. Many on the right, including Palin, have objected to this characterization, arguing that “blaming the right” or any one else is intrinsically unfair and that the mindless crime occurred simply because the perpetrator was mentally ill and unhinged. Since the assassin was "sick," this cannot be seen as a "political act." The allegedly deranged mental state of the perpetrator becomes an opening to "de-politicize" the crime. This is, simply put, a ruse.</p>
<p>The climate surrounding this pattern of systematic violence suggests that the motivating political objective is ridding the state of Arizona of "illegal aliens." Indeed, the U.S. has a long history of such violence and correspondingly incoherent but hate-filled vitriol, dating to the earliest days of the enterprise.</p>
<p>We must therefore be receptive to the idea that the ideologically-hostile climate produced by exaggerated ring-wing grievances about ethnic, racial, class, and other sources of resentment is a serious problem in our public culture, and thus limits democracy. Despite the underlying validity of this argument, I do not agree that this is the most positive and productive approach to take in seeking to address the problem of a lack of a civil, equitable, and democratic political culture in this nation. What is needed instead is a movement toward a more transformative dialogue about peace and democracy, grounded in the lived experiences of our families and communities.</p>
<p>We are all partly made into the type of human we embody as a result of the child-rearing practices we experience. These practices are not epiphenomenal or coincidental. The way we raise children is as revealing about the biography of the becoming of a person as it is of the societal structure and general cultural values, mores, and norms that play a significant role in creating the ‘public persona’ (the person that interacts with others in the public sphere). In particular, we can look to exemplars like the “Zapoteca” of La Paz, Oaxaca, Mexico — a cultural inquiry that, incidentally, could be banned in Arizona as part of the now prohibited pursuit of “ethnic studies” — who are revered across the world for their practice of “socialization for peace.”</p>
<p>Research by anthropologists, including Douglas Fry (1993) among others, has long suggested that there are human communities where it is possible to raise children in a manner that reduces violence, aggression, and exuberant physicality or ‘toughness.’ For example, the Zapotec are known to rear their children to value “respect for elders” and “sharing as a virtue.” These norms are part of a complex set of practices that produce what scholars call “socialization for peace.” <a title="The Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict" href="http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Violence-Peace-Conflict-Three-Volume/dp/012227010X" target="_blank"><em>The Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict</em></a> entry for “La Paz Zapotec” of Mexico illustrates this in ethnographic detail.</p>
<p>The idea that cultures exist that emphasize “socialization for peace” may be viable in Oaxaca, Mexico, but it is also viable anywhere else we wish to become more mindful of the effects and consequences of our child-rearing practices? Could it be that socialization for peace will result in a culture that produces very few “sociopaths”? The Zapotec of La Paz (Spanish for “Peace”) have some of the lowest crime rates in the world including a near absence of murder. It can certainly be stated that the Zapotec have never produced a serial or mass murderer.</p>
<p>This seems quite unlike our dominant avarice-driven, self-centered, and neo-Darwinian approach to child-rearing that gets kids to compete ruthlessly for attention while encouraging them to engage in banal acquisitiveness as a route to self-realization. This suggests that, while our society is very complicated, it has not truly attained the level of norm-setting and values-defining sophistication evident in the child-rearing practices of the Zapotecs. This apparently pervasive deficit — and not some naturalized proclivity of the American character toward avarice, competition, and violence — likely makes more advanced forms of justice and juridical normative control difficult to attain broadly in our society.</p>
<p>Native Americans have long held that the roots of the American Republic are steeped in systemic and even gloriously and religiously inscribed violence. We could argue the point endlessly but the fact remains that the Zapoteca have experienced some 400+ years of colonialism, racism, land theft, structural violence, and every other imaginable indignity and violent deprivation imposed by outsiders. Amazingly, they continue to socialize their children for peacefulness despite their experience of four centuries of inter-generational historical trauma and structural violence. Despite this inter-generational suffering, the Zapoteca have persisted because of their culture of resilience, which empowers them to refuse being reduced to the detritus of neoliberal capitalism. They are not merely ghosts of "primitive accumulation."</p>
<p>I know many Zapotecas and other Mesoamerican people who are part of a post-NAFTA Diaspora into the U.S. and Canada. From L.A. to Seattle, I have been privileged over the years to work with Mesoamerican Diaspora farmers as part of our collaborative engagement in the new urban agriculture movement and its basic struggle for food sovereignty. Along the way, I have heard stories of violence and peace and witnessed the parenting of youth. Mesoamerican members of the South Central Farmers Feeding Families have shared stories of great-grandmothers who were forcibly raped and kidnapped by criminal rurales, the armed forces of the dictator Porfirio Diaz. They have shared stories of abuelos captured, chained, and exported like cattle on railroad cars toward unknown destinies as slave labor for plantations and mining centers.</p>
<p>This was followed by new waves of violence in the form of state terrorism perpetrated by the landed gentry, the regional post-Revolutionary caciques and other overlords that included state governors and other elected officials. This wave of violence forced numerous indigenous peasant farmers off their communal lands. Then came the most recent wave of violence that was perpetrated by neoliberal shock doctrines and more people have died, this time from hunger and malnutrition or from a spray of bullets by the new rurales, the minions and thugs of the Zetas and various drug cartels.</p>
<p>In this manner, one great-grandmother, a grandfather, and a father were all killed or died during three distinct waves of political violence in Oaxaca between 1887 and 1993—all in the same Zapotec family and community. An important part of this family is here today, farming in Southern California. They are peacefully participating in and creating an urban agriculture revolution. They are basing this on their ancient agroecological knowledge and the heirloom seeds of corn, bean, squash, and hundreds of other Native land race crops they have brought along inside suitcases full of mole and chapulines (dried grasshoppers, a popular snack).</p>
<p>While peacefully creating a new place-based ecological democracy and contributing to local food sovereignty, they are also teaching their children how to be kind, gentle, and generous human beings. They do so by sharing the secrets of good farming, a sound community, healthy bodies, and the ethics of the solidarity economy—mutual aid and communal caring.</p>
<p>How do we transform our violent political culture toward one based on the alternative care ethics of mutual aid and conviviality? I turn again to the Zapotec farmers. The concept of “moral economy” has been used by social scientists to refer to the interplay between cultural mores and economic activity. It can be used to describe a situation in which custom and social pressure coerce members of a community, when acting in the economic sphere, to conform to traditional norms, even at the expense of personal profit.</p>
<p>This describes the moral economy of the <a title="South Central Farmers" href="http://www.southcentralfarmers.com/" target="_blank">South Central Farmers</a>. It also describes Zapotec child-rearing practices. They raise their children by emphasizing the good of the whole. But they also celebrate the worth of the self, connected to others as a contributing member of a community. We can learn from cultures such as the Zapotec how to build our own moral economy from the numerous acts of peace-loving practice of inclusive citizenship, mutual aid, and conviviality. The everyday act of raising peaceful children may become the most important overlooked resource we can mobilize to build a sustained and truly transformative social movement that can finally take us beyond the current political culture that produces (and is itself constantly poisoned by) the deep wells of structural and interpersonal violence.</p>
<p><em>Devon G. Peña, Ph.D. (Chicano/Creek) is a lifelong activist in the environmental justice and resilient agriculture movements, and is Professor of American Ethnic Studies, Anthropology, and Environmental Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. His influential books include Mexican Americans and the Environment: Tierra y Vida (University of Arizona Press, 2005) and the edited volume Chicano Culture, Ecology, Politics: Subversive Kin (University of Arizona Press, 1998). Dr. Peña is the founding editor of two blogs, Environmental and Food Justice and History and Politics of Mexican Immigration and is a Contributing Author for New Clear Vision.</em></p>
</div></div></div></div></fieldset>
<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Learning Peacefulnes</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/all" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">All</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/circle-violence" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Circle of violence</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/culture" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Culture</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/discrimination" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Discrimination</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/government" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Government</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/history" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">History</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/land" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Land</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/legal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Legal</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/politics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Politics</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/racism" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Racism</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/sovereignty" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sovereignty</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Devon G. Peña</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/mexico" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Mexico</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/guatemala" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Guatemala</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/tea-party" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Tea Party</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/sarah-palin" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sarah Palin</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/rep-gabrielle-giffords" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Rep. Gabrielle Giffords</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/devon-g-pena" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Devon G. Pena</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/zapotecas" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Zapotecas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/brisenia-flores" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Brisenia Flores</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/anastacio-hernandez-rojas" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Anastacio Hernandez-Rojas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/nafta" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">NAFTA</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/south-central-farmers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">South Central Farmers</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/devon-g.-pe%C3%B1a" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Devon G. Peña</a></div></div></div>Fri, 04 May 2012 18:00:31 +0000mazecyrus111325 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/05/04/learning-peacefulness-zapotecas#comments